Bentham Science Publishers
| Founded | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United Arab Emirates |
| Headquarters location | Sharjah |
| Publication types | Scientific journals, ebooks |
| Official website | www |
Bentham Science Publishers is a publishing company of scientific, technical, and medical literature based at Sharjah (United Arab Emirates).[1][2] Bentham publishes more than 116 subscription-based academic journals[2] and over 230 open access journals and e-books.[3] Bentham Science Publishers has operating units in the United States, Japan, China, India, and the Netherlands. More than 90 percent of the workforce is outsourced to Pakistan.[4][5] Other outsource operations include China, UK, USA, India, and other countries. Its open access branch, Bentham Open Science, has received attention for its questionable peer-review practices.
Contents
Publishing divisions
Bentham Science has three main operating divisions: subscription-based journals, open access titles, and e-books. They publish research literature in all areas of science, medicine, technology, humanities, and social sciences, which is available in both electronic and print versions.
Subscription-based journals
Bentham Science publishes 116 journals in the fields of biotechnology, biomedical, pharmaceuticals, technology, engineering, computer and social sciences. These titles are indexed in Scopus, Chemical Abstracts, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubsHub, etc.[citation needed]
Open access
Bentham Open Access publishes more than 100 peer-reviewed, free-to-view online journals under Bentham Open. This imprint has been identified as a predatory publisher by Jeffrey Beall.[6]
E-books
Bentham eBooks publish text books, handbooks, monographs, biographies, autobiographies, conference proceedings and review volumes in the areas of medicine, technology, humanities, natural, and social sciences.
Controversies and criticism
Bentham Open journals claim to employ peer review;[7] however, the fact that a fake paper generated with SCIgen had been accepted for publication, has cast doubt on this.[8][9][10] Furthermore, the publisher is known for spamming scientists with invitations to become a member of the editorial boards of its journals.[11]
In 2009, the Bentham Open Science journal, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, published a study contending dust from the World Trade Center attacks contained "active nanothermite".[12] Following publication, the journal's editor-in-chief Marie-Paule Pileni resigned stating, "They have printed the article without my authorization… I have written to Bentham, that I withdraw myself from all activities with them".[13]
In a review of Bentham Open for The Charleston Advisor, Jeffrey Beall noted that "in many cases, Bentham Open journals publish articles that no legitimate peer-review journal would accept, and unconventional and nonconformist ideas are being presented in some of them as legitimate science." He concluded by stating that "the site has exploited the Open Access model for its own financial motives and flooded scholarly communication with a flurry of low quality and questionable research."[14]
In 2013, The Open Bioactive Compounds Journal was one of the journals that accepted an obviously bogus paper submitted as part of the Who's Afraid of Peer Review? sting.[15] It has since been discontinued.[16]
See also
References
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- ↑ http://informationtechnologyservices.com.pk/
- ↑ http://www.aardvarknet.info/access/number50/monthnews.cfm?monthnews=11
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- ↑ Some background on Bentham Open, but just some Peter Suber, Open Access News, April 24, 2008
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Who's Afraid of Peer Review? Data
- ↑ The Open Bioactive Compounds Journal
